1. Field of Invention
The present invention is related to analyzing certain public information relative to an entity's customer data in order to calculate an inferred value assigned to a customer and provide specially tailored information to that customer.
2. Background
Target marketing is the art of sending marketing messages to a group of specific receivers based on a characteristic or characteristics shared by members of the group. Targeting messages in this manner creates more efficient marketing strategies i.e. less money spent on messages that are ineffective and/or less money spent on groups that include a high number of receivers with no connection either to the message or, perhaps, to the product. This technique has been used now for a number of years and has, in some industries, replaced many of the marketing campaigns aimed at providing information about a product to a broad spectrum of receivers with campaigns that include messages specifically targeted and addressed to small subgroups of intended receivers. Characteristics used to target include any one of or a combination of factors such as age, gender, address, socioeconomic status derived from residential address, profession, alumni status, etc.
Another variety of target marketing includes mining the data in a customer data base. Many businesses maintain information pertaining to past customers and the transactions these customers have made with the business. That information, in turn, can be used to target certain messages to those past customers encouraging them to transact additional business.
One problem with target marketing is that targeting the message can only be as precise and appropriate as the underlying data upon which it is based. The quality of the underlying data is effected by a number of factors not the least of which are changes related to time. In the situation where customer purchasing information is used, there may be a time lag between purchase and marketing for the next purchase. During that time, the customer may move so that his address is no longer correct. When a message is sent to an incorrect address, it typically results in a “miss” and an expenditure. In target marketing activities related to enticing a past buyer to replace, upgrade or accessorize a previous purchase, the problem is compounded. In addition to possible address changes, the purchaser may have sold or otherwise disposed of the previous purchase. Without the current status of ownership, any messages sent to encourage replacing, upgrading or accessorizing will be moot and result in an expense without possibility of return on the investment in marketing.
A method and system is needed to infer whether the purchaser of a particular item still owns that item. Once known, that information allows an accurately targeted marketing message to that purchaser.
It is, therefore, one object of the present invention to collect, select, and analyze information to provide more accurate inferences regarding a specific consumer, his present address, and his ownership status of a particular good.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of more accurately targeting a particular group of consumers according to their ownership status or possession.
It is yet another object of the present invention to control costs of target marketing by reducing the number of consumers to target while increasing the efficiency of the marketing efforts employed.
It is a final object of the present invention to identify past customers who still own a particular good, calculate and present a specific offer to each customer that still owns the good wherein the specific offer may be tailored to a number of factors including, but not limited to, an assessed level of use of the original good, financial information used by the customer to purchase the original good or otherwise present in the customer database, current interest rates or special offers by the business, a replacement item based on historical data about other similar customers' buying patterns.